The Faraway Mountains

Canadian Romanian writer Guiasu debuts with a poignant if murky portrait of four young men struggling under the pressures of communist rule in an unnamed Eastern European country in the 1980s. Three of them­—Alex, Dan, and Victor—are hiking together in the Carpathian Mountains to send off Alex, whose application to leave for Canada has finally been approved by the government. The others will remain “on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.” Victor wants to stay and make things better while Dan envies Alex’s luck. Not much happens on the hike, beyond a close call with a bear and inclement weather. The novel’s second half delves into the friends’ experiences in the capital city after they return from the mountains and Alex prepares to leave. Interspersed through both sections are confusing glimpses of a young pianist named Gabriel, Alex’s best friend and the fourth member of the group, whose body was discovered a year earlier in the region where the others took their hike. In flashbacks, Guisau establishes that before Gabriel died while hiking alone, he was arrested and tortured by the police. While the narrative is dense and the dialogue feels stilted, Guiasu addresses his characters’ yearning and their complex feelings about their fates with great care. This succeeds as a story of fractured friendship. (Nov.)